Keeping Creative at Home: Five easy ways into poetry

14 April 2020

Alice Watson & Helen Bowell from The Poetry Society’s education team share some tips for getting young people into reading and writing poetry – both great activities for supporting wellbeing & encouraging positive mental health

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We're aware there's currently a lot of pressure on parents in particular around home education. So, first and foremost, all of the activities in this series are designed to be fun, creative experiences for your children (and hopefully for you too!) – but there is also potential for learning in all of them.

These activities are suitable for a range of ages and can easily be adapted by teachers to suit the needs of their students.

Many of us aren’t able to be creative in our normal ways at the moment. We can’t go to choir rehearsal, or the theatre, or a museum… but we can all still read, watch and write poetry. And now, more than ever, we find ourselves turning to poems for comfort, and to express our thoughts and feelings in a creative way.

Vitally, poetry can also support wellbeing. When The Poetry Society asked young people whether they’d like to have dedicated time to write creatively at school in 2018, 95% said, “yes please!”, and over half of those young people said having time to write would have a positive impact on their mental health.

Here are some easy ways into reading and writing poetry from across The Poetry Society’s materials.

1. Does this smell like a good poem?

Sometimes the hardest thing about writing is knowing where to start, so why not try using smells for some inspiration!

The first step is to create your own smelling pots – so grab a few empty jars and head to the kitchen or garden. Pop anything that smells into a jar – fresh-cut grass, spices, sweets, herbs, onions, garlic, ginger, orange, cheese… get creative!

Next, smell one of the jars. Adults can cover the sides up and ask the young person to guess what it is. Do they like the smell? Does it remind them of a particular memory, place or occasion?

Thinking about what these smells mean to you, use the smells to create similes or metaphors. For example, I felt as happy as cut grass on a spring day.

2. Overcoming page fright

If you want to write poetry, you’ve got to read it. But lots of us find it hard to connect with poems written hundreds of years ago. Have a go at writing a poem or spoken word piece that looks at how part of your life is influenced by another culture.

First, watch Hollie McNish read Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s famous poem ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’, and her own poem in response ‘British National Breakfast'.

3. Writing about your family or friends

Can you write a poem about your own family or friends? Start off by writing down the names of four people, either relatives or friends. Now, think of a word or phrase to describe each character, for example: noisy, loud, loving, funny, ticklish…

Then try to expand on the characters and characteristics they’ve chosen and complete some verses that echo Jackie Kay’s poem. You can use the frame below to help:

4. Complete a writing challenge

Young Poets Network is The Poetry Society’s global online platform for writers aged up to 25. All year, we publish features about poetry, as well as writing challenges and opportunities from other organisations.

For this time of lockdown, we’ve gathered together our top 10 writing challengesfrom across the Young Poet’s Network’s nine-year history. The list includes some of our most popular challenges, as well as what we think are the easiest ways to generate poems in a stressful situation.

Each challenge asks you to write about a particular theme, or in a particular form or style, with plenty of examples and ways into the topic. They’re initially released as competitions and we publish the winning responses and send prizes all over the world. But even after they close, they function as free online writing workshops for you to adapt in any way you like. And once they’re closed for entries, you can also read the winning poems for even more inspiration!

Our tip – pick a poetic form or writing constraint, like writing a poem using only one vowel. That’ll help you find new perspectives and creative ways to talk about the everyday.

5. Reading 'unseen' poems

Do you ever find it difficult to ‘get’ a poem the first time you read it? Now is the perfect time to read some new ‘unseen’ poems and practice analysing them yourself.

Former Foyle Young Poet and current Birmingham Poet Laureate, Richard O’Brien, has a great toolkit to get under the skin of a poem on first reading. In this article, Richard looks at Foyle Young Poet’s winning poem, ‘Daughters’ by Phoebe Stuckes. To ‘engage with the poem on its own terms, and see what follows’, Richard thinks carefully about first and last words, repetition, themes, metaphors and more.

Looking for further inspiration?

At the Poetry Society, education is at the heart of what we do – from sharing free poetry lesson plans with teachers worldwide, to running prestigious free writing competitions; from placing poets in schools, to recognising teachers for their excellence in poetry education.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be creating even more online resources for distance learning. If you’d like to make any requests, need help finding a resource, or just want to say hello, get in touch at educationadmin@poetrysociety.org.uk.

Happy reading and writing!

Education Officer Alice Watson and Education Co-ordinator Helen Bowell deliver projects with schools and young people at The Poetry Society, a National Portfolio Organisation based in Covent Garden, London.